Phi Brain – Kami no Puzzle – 02 Review

The show itself is not terrible but the over-the-top reactions of the characters with their awe-filled voices does get on my nerves and destroys the show.

One thing we did learn from the show this week, having a good memory does not equate to being intelligent. (Just look at Nonoha)

Scratch that, there was another important lesson in this episode – When all else fails, cheat by destroying the puzzle to become a winner.

Powerpoint-style Summary

A new character (who is a puzzle fanatic) called Galileo is introduced into this episode.

We learn about the Givers of puzzles called POG and the people who solve the puzzles are given titles (Kaito is given the title of Einstein) are called Orpheus (aka Solvers) (not so original with the naming there).

The POG is a secret genius organisation that creates and watches over Sage Puzzles with the aim of obtaining the Divine Puzzle which puts them on the same level as God. (Did not sound as lame when the show said it)

The activation taps into Kaito’s secret potential (and it also gives him a spasm each time)

Titles give them privileges and this shows the importance of puzzles in the Phi Brain World

Existence of the Children of Phi Brain

Kaito has a childhood friend with white hair who he used to create puzzles with and who so happens to look like a kid version of the head of the POG. (or maybe I am discriminating ‘cos of the white hair, but honestly, it seemed like that was the point of the white hair – to make him easy to recognise, I mean, this show is not a deep series)

When all else fails while solving a Puzzle… you should cheat and just destroy it. (After all, we have all been there and done that. The only difference is that we get scolded and look like a fool while Kaito looks like a genius.)

Phi Tip of the Week: We should eat more food to make up for the energy spent while solving puzzles.Boy, if only my mom (and my body) would believe that excuse

Review

One thing that the first episode had shown us was that this series does know how to pace itself and that means that we won’t have to wait weeks just to learn some small information about the show’s plot.

This episode shows us the importance of the puzzles in the Phi Brain world as well as introduces us to the purpose of the organization called the ‘Givers of POG’ and the existence of people like Kaito who are given a title and referred to as a Solver. The episode then eludes to another fact, which is the existence of the children of Phi Brain.

It is nice that the information is not portrayed in a dull manner and the episode is filled with plenty of smaller puzzles and one large scale puzzle. Instead of merely having the people stand around talking all day long, the show does a decent job of incorporating the information through the different meetings Kaito have with various new characters such as another puzzle fanatic called Galileo.

But whilst that is the upside to the show, the show has a major downside and that is how lame some of the characters seem with their exclamation of their new found “knowledge”. Especially when it comes to the puzzles, the guys just go nuts and over-react to everything with Kaito’s whole “the puzzle wants to be solved” statement and what not. I honestly cringed at that part. Seriously, he could have just kept quiet and it would have been a better scene. Also, I still don’t get why the writers have to make Kaito seem stupid, when in a pinch, in order to make him look smarter when he accesses his “hidden power”. It makes him come across as being more of a weakling than a powerful being, especially since he turns into a whole different person (apparently having a bad attitude is the new trait of making the character seem strong) when he is in his “activated mode”.

Then we have Kaito’s girlfriend, good friend, whatever she is. It felt like the whole point of the mini-puzzle section was to show how stupid that girl is at times. Like I had said above, having a good memory does not make you smart… but I am starting to doubt her memory especially with how she reacted to Kaito having solved that small puzzle on the wall. You would think that this was the first time she had seen him solve a puzzle, but we know better. Also, wasn’t she chasing after him? Who chases a person and goes… “Ooo, a puzzle! I should try to solve this first before continuing my “chase” for Kaito”. A tad weird, no? =P

What I did like the fact that we got to see many different puzzles in this episode, but I would have liked it more if the animators actually showed us the solution to the puzzle instead of simply blocking off the solution with a head obstructing the view. (I really don’t think that a solution to a puzzle in an animation can be considered a spoiler…. =P)

It was also nice to see the show tie the pyramids and other monumental structures into the show to make the Phi Brain world more realistic and distant from reality.

Dear writers, it would be nice if the main genius character did not have to break the puzzle to solve it.

Overall, the episode was decent just as long as you forgive and forget the way the characters over-reacted to the puzzles. The sad thing was that the impact of the big buildup to the puzzle from last episode was lost on me when the puzzle was solved in an instant and in an unbelievable manner (I mean, does his activated eyes also give him x-ray vision? =P) The back story with the POG and Solvers is interesting and I would probably watch a few more episodes of this show to see how things pan out, hopefully things will get the better.

Episode Rating: 6.5/10 – ’twas entertaining

-ra

P.S: I thought that the “bakababababakakabakakaba” was a nice touch with the Morse Code.

Here’s a old game that is similar to the big puzzle of the week. You can down the app to your smartphone for free (or at least that’s the case for the iPhone).

The game is called ‘Unblock Me’ and can be downloaded here, and don’t do what Kaito does in the show. It does not actually work…

This “Dear writers, it would be nice if the main genius character did not have to break the puzzle to solve it.”

I’d say more something along the lines of “Dear writers, it would be nice if you didn’t make the whole breaking the puzzle thing look like the most intelligent thinking of the world”
That pissed me off a bit.

On the other hand, Gallileo’s appearance makes the show more interesting, I think I’ll continue now, I’ll just turn off my brain

I was with this episode to the point where the main character had a monologue about puzzles being a window to the soul, at that point the show just seemed to be taking itself too seriously, which isn’t a fatal flaw on its own, but even within their world where puzzly-ness is next to godliness the speech seemed forced. The puzzles themselves seemed interesting too, but i think making them into life and death situations just added to that whole feeling of forced importance that the show has. Not gonna say the show is a lost cause just yet, but I have a feeling its gonna be hard to get emotionally invested in any of it.

side note, I still think the original millennium puzzle was the best puzzle of all lol

lol, it was just a jigsaw puzzle that when put together the main housed the soul of an ancient pharaoh, and the main character that put it together happened to be that pharaoh’s reincarnation. Said reincarnation was good at the magical version of a present day card game, and of course in that world, the card game was what puzzles are in this Phi Brain. It probably worked a little better because the plot line was a bit clearer and the life and death situations were there, but they weren’t quite so artificially forced. The characters had a larger, big picture reason to duel and win; as opposed to this guy who solves puzzles for the hell of it, and the outcome occasionally matters because he might crushed under a bus, in a garage that has too many cars.

Then again that show came out when I was like 12, so who knows. It did compel me to buy the actual trading cards the show modeled around after watching enough of the show so I may have been biased lol

Lol, I can understand what you mean. At that age, I was watching everything through goggles that coloured everything pretty.

“It did compel me to buy the actual trading cards the show ”

Well, Pokemon compelled me to buy the trading cards and spend hundreds and hundreds of dollars on their stuff. The result? I got a whopping by my parents. =D Maybe I am weird for saying this but I actually like the Pokemon game (and it is not due to the fact that I played it when I was kid since I was still playing the Pokemon game until my DS broke down. Yes, I owned a DS, don’t judge.)

No shame in owning a DS lol, I still use mine, but thats mostly because I have a flash-cart and access to thousands of roms. Not surprisingly my favorite games tend to show their anime influence. A good number of those games are never translated officially either, so its a good system for games that would have a bigger influence in Japan but not enough in the US to get localized. Pokemon is still as awesome as it was in 5th grade, at least the games are, I have no clue how that anime series is doing now beyond being an endless cash cow for Nintendo.

“ps, that was still me lol, I should probably be doing some kind of login at this point”

Yes. You should. Lol, go and get a wordpress blog log-in or gravatar log-in, think of all the benefits:

1) you won’t be anonymous
2) you can have your very own spastic display picture that is not a random bat. =P
3) I am too lazy to think of a no. 3 =P

“No shame in owning a DS lol, I still use mine”

I lost mine in someone’s house and for some reason I never found it. I swear, things go missing around me and it is not because I got hungry and ate them! I swear! Or perhaps I could blame it on having to exert so much energy when writing reviews thus needs to feed myself so often….*cough*

“Pokemon is still as awesome as it was in 5th grade, at least the games are, I have no clue how that anime series is doing now beyond being an endless cash cow for Nintendo.”

I have not seen the shows as well but yeap, the game was just as good as it was back when it first came out.